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WHIT.BT | 

WOODROW 

AND THE 

GRANDDAUGHTERS 



OF A 



PRESIDENT 



SOUTHERN PROGRESSIVES 

APPEAL FROM MISS TARBELL'S 
VERDICT 



BY 

HELEN DORTCH LONGSTREET 



PRICE lO CENTS 



E.7 61 



By transfer 
Tbe fbita House, 






To 

THE PATRIOTS OF THE WEST 



i 



No crisis in human history has ever sought in vain for lead- 
ership. Aaron Burrs may plot and Benedict Arnolds betray, but, 
thank God, there are Ethan Aliens and Nathan Hales on every 

plain and hillside and in every valley of this wide land, with one 
i 

more round of ammunition for human freedom — that its holiest 
heritage, the Democracy toward which the unbought patriotism 
of a New World has travailed, shall not go down in a dark night 
of despair! 



WOODROW 

And The 

GRANDDAUGHTERS OF A PRESIDENT 

By 

HELEN DORTCH LONGSTREET 

Gainesville, Ga. 



Author of "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide"; "In the Path 
of Lee's Old War Horse"; "Around America's Camp Fires"; "The 
Travail of the New Slavery"; "Anahuac, the Land of Wrecked 
Dreams"; etc. • 



SEPTEMBER, 1916 



PUBLISHERS PRESS 



k 33 ATLANTA. GEORGIA 



WOODROW WILSON AND THE GRAND- 
DAUGHTERS OF A PRESIDENT. 

To the Progressives of the West: 

The mental processes through which the always brilliant and 
usually intellectually honest, Miss Ida M. Tarbell, has steered 
to endoresment of Woodrow Wilson as fit to lead Progressive 
Christendom, are calculated to beguile and befuddle the public 
mind; already steeped in four years of beguilement and befud- 
dlement, under soulful words from the White House, with never 
a robust deed to back them up. Southern Progressives appeal 
from the accolade placed on the shoulders of President Wilson 
by Miss Tarbell. We point to four years of lofty essays un- 
iilumined by constructive legislation which should entitle Wood- 
row Wilson to. the support of a single Progressive, East, West, 
North or South. 

Progressives have been singled out by Woodrow Wilson for 
the most contemptuqus treatment visited by him on any class 
of his fellow citizens. He overlooked the fact that we were 
Americans. He conveniently forgot that due to our following 
the leadership of Roosevelt, he owed his accidental tenure of 
the White House. He might, at least, have cherished a tolerant 
feeling for us, but he didn't, not until the hour when he needs 
our votes. 

New World history has not furnished a more versatile talker 
than Woodrow Wilson. Theories, dreams, elegant essays — that's 
all there is to his record. 

The west has nurtured the doers of the deeds that have made 
our land great and held it free. 

There has never been a congenial spot in the wonderful 
region, beyond the Mississippi, for the man who does not trans- 
late valiant talk into the democracy of virile conduct. 

The stalwart Americanism which has flowered in unmatched 
splendor across America's western plains to the Pacific sea, is 
our country's hope, in this hour of great need. 

Southern Progressives appeal to the unbought patriotism of 
Western Progressives to support the candidate who stands for 
the preservation, in undiminished strength, of the constitutional 
liberties for which our fathers fought. 

I appeal to Western Progressives neither as a Republican 
nor as a Democrat. I was a delegate to the Progressive con- 
vention which nominated Roosevelt in 1912 and I was a delegate 
to the Progressive convention which nominated Roosevelt in 
1916. And so long as a convention shall assemble on this con- 
tinent to nominate Roosevelt for President, I propose to be a 
member of that convention, for I know he is America's strong- 
est man and the world's foremost statesman. 

But this year there is no Progressive ticket in the field, and 



the question which each Progressive has to settle with his own 
soul is whether to support Hughes' or Wilson or be a quitter 
and skulker and refuse to support anybody in the greatest crisis 
save one, which this nation has confronted since the minute- 
men of Concord fired the shot which was heard around the 
world. 

There was a day when the section from which I write did 
not skulk or quit — a day when the South stood sponsor at the 
cradle of this republic, framed its constitution and furnished 
the commander who led its valiant armies. And while we honor 
Washington and quote Marshall and revere the Monroe doctrine, 
we must reach towards the standards of the great South of 
the greater day. 

A little while ago, my old black mammy came from her 
humble cabin in the nearby hills, to see me in the Southern 
village where I was stopping. She is one of the few survivors 
of the slave days. She was my nurse in the after-the-war 
period, and the young affection cherished for her has grown 
and deepened with the years of womanhood/ 

"Lawse, honey," she said, "you'se changed er powerful heap 
sence I las' seen you. What's you bin doin' ter yerseff ?" 

I told her that I had had trouble, along with millions of 
my countrymen during the reign of the "new freedom" calcu- 
lated to silver one's hair and deepen the lines in one's face. 

"But shorely, honey," she said, "they haint nobody had no 
sich trouble as we's bin er habin in dese parts eber sence dem 
damned Democrats got control ob things. But 'scuse my onman- 
nerliness in cussin'. Endurin' ob dese hard times while Presi- 
dent Wilson hab bin chasin er sicology sarpint wliat he sez is 
de occasion ob hit, Ish, my ole man, hab took ter drinkin' corn 
liquor an' Pse took ter cussin'. I usen ter think hit wuz er 
powerful sin ter cuss. An' one night when I wuz down in de 
sackcloth an' ashes er beggin' de Lord ter fergib me for loosin' 
control ob my tongue; I hearn de bressed Lord speakin' com- 
fortin' lak' ez plain ez de hootin' ob de owl, and he he sez, sez 
he: 'Dat's all right, Mammy, I sho' wud cuss too, ef I wuz 
down dere in de midst ob de doggone devilishness which Mister 
Professer Wilson hab stirred up wid dem railroad brotherhoods." 

When 1 begin a discussion of Mr. Wilson's performances for 
the past four years, I always incline to asking the Lord to for- 
give me in advance for what I shall have to say. And I feel 
somewhat as my old black mammy expressed it, that the Lord 
understands, and would use strong language Himself should He 
again assume the form of a man and stand in the midst of the 
evils that today beset us on every side. For when the Master 
walked among men, did He not drive the money changers from 
the Temple, denouncing them for having made it the gathering 
place of thieves ? 

Along with millions of Americans, I felt when Mr. Wilson 



was nominated in 1912, that he was the strongest and cleanest 
man the Democrats had, and I was glad they nominated him 
and said so. I knew that race was between Roosevelt and 
Wilson, and if Roosevelt could not win, I was good enough an 
American to want the Democrats to elect their ablest and purest 
man. But after observing four years of Mr. Wilson's perform- 
ances, I know he was the weakest man the Democrats could have 
elected. 

Mr. Wilson's words never square with his deeds. With 
touching pride Mr. Wilson points to himself as an apostle of 
civil service. But he has done more than any President in our 
history towards breaking down the merit system. In the hour 
of a world cataclysm he has about wrecked the efficiency of our 
diplomatic service. He has removed foremost American states- 
men from European courts where their services were sorely 
needed, to make room for "deserving Democrats." With one 
stroke of his pen he removed forty thousand fourth class Post- 
masters from the classified serviee, to enable the reclassifica- 
tion of Democrats. He turned the Census Bureau over to the 
spoilsmen. 

Claiming to be a Southern gentleman it would be reasonable 
to expect that in his dealings with Southern women, he would 
not forget the proud traditions and stainless history of the 
brave and chivalrous South, that has ever held its womankind 
apart, as something holy. 

But in his mad adherence to a system condemned so long ago 
as when the Israelites took Canaan, he pitilessly deprived the 
widows and daughters of Southern soldiers of small post offices 
which furnished their only means of support, in the land whose 
battles their fathers had fought, in order that he might provide 
places for the ward heelers of Democratic Congressmen. 

In a country town in northern Alabama, the daughter of a 
Confederate soldier was ousted from office more than a year, 
before the expiration of her term. Her father fell at the battle 
of Peachtree under the tattered banners of the Southern Con- 
federacy. She had been appointed to the Alabama post office 
by our martyr soldier-President of hallowed memory, William 
McKinley, at whose dying couch, the North and the South knelt, 
like the sisters of Bethany, forever reconciled. She appealed 
to President Wilson, telling him that the salary of the office 
furnished her only means of support, and if he could not leave 
her the privilege of earning a living in the land for whose cause 
her father offered up the last, full measure of devotion, at least 
to allow her to serve to the end of her term. But the appeal 
fell upon deaf ears. Mr. Wilson was spending his Christmas 
down at Pass Christian and devoting his leisure moments to 
dedicating an ode to his civil service devotion. 

In a country town in the Virginia mountains, . the grand- 
daughter of rough and rugged John Tyler, tenth President of 
the United States, was holding a small post office to which she 



had been successively appointed by Presidents of Northern birth 
and lineage. There was never a President of this nation who 
was more stubbornly committed to "state rights," free trade, 
and the various time-worn issues to which Mr. Wilson still 
clings, than John Tyler. Like Wilson, he was born on the soil 
of the "Old Dominion." Miss Tyler had no means of support 
save the salary of the office and an aged and infirm sister was 
dependent upon her. The public believed that Woodrow Wilson 
would not be so conscienceless as to turn adrift to starve, the 
granddaughters of that Virginia President who saved to our 
country the rich territory out of which the State of Oregon was 
carved. But he did; because the henchman of a Democratic 
Congressman clamored for the "spoils." 

We hear much denunciation of German raids on helpless 
women and children. But Woodrow Wilson has nothing on the 
German Kaiser. There are some things that are worse than 
death, and these have been visited by President Wilson on the 
defenceless daughters of the South, descendants of those who 
led the South's armies and made Southern history. 

During successive administrations of magnanimous Northern 
Presidents, the widows and daughters of Southern Democrats 
have been appointed to important post offices in the South. One 
almost glimpsed the dawn of the millennium, when President 
Roosevelt appointed Mrs. Atkinson, widow of a Democratic gov- 
ernor, to one of the most important post offices in Georgia. And 
he did it with all the beautiful chivalry that could have been 
expressed in extending a courtesy to a Princess of the royal 
blood; although no Southern politician had ever been more re- 
lentless in denunciation of Republican policies than Governor 
Atkinson. 

We Progressives had to choose between Hughes and Wilson. 
And we feel that we have scarcely been given the chance of a 
real choice. In intellectual honesty, in robust Americanism, in 
sincerity of purpose and courage of action, Charles Evans 
Hughes, the stainless jurist and progressive American states- 
man, is about as far removed from Woodrow Wilson, the school 
teacher and time server, as the farthest fixed stars from this 
planet. 



WOODROW WILSON HAS SHAMED 
SOUTHERN IDEALS AND DARK- 
ENED SOUTHERN HOPES. 

We Southern Progressives are supporting Mr. Hughes be- 
cause we know he is immeasurably the strongest man in the 
field. 

Mr. Wilson has been occupied for four years mainly in for- 
mulating various and ever-changing programs of his own, to 
which he has proven as faithless as he has been disloyal to the 
platform on which he rode into office. 

Does anybody know what Mr. Wilson really believes in? 
I doubt if he knows himself. He believes one thing today, 
another thing tomorrow and something else next week. If one 
can prophecy what Mr. Wilson is going to do in the future by 
what he has done in the past, it is safe to say that he is dead 
certain to do exactly the opposite of what he says he believes in. 

Since the last guns were stacked at Appomattox no ques- 
tions more stupendous have tested the strength, power and ef- 
ficiency of this republic, than will have to be handled within 
the next four years, following the close of the European war 
and in the Mexican troubles which Mr. Wilson's administration 
will have bequeathed to us. 

The times do not call for a weak and uncertain man. The 
times call for a man of dauntless courage, of unafraid action, 
of a patriotism that knows no wavering and a devotion to' 
American ideals to which a despairing people may look, as the 
mariner on the stormy sea looks to the southern cross. Charles 
Evans Hughes is the hope of the nation in this hour. In the 
fiery furnace of political test his mettle has been found to be 
eighteen karats pure. He will snatch up our flag from the 
grime in which Mr. Wilson's course has degraded it before every 
nation of the earth, leaving America solitary in her friendless- 
ness among the world powers. 

So pure and high an authority as Dr. Samuel Woodrow, 
cousin of Mr. Wilson and Pastor of Pilgrim Congregational' 
Church of St. Louis, has been courageous enough to denounce 
President Wilson's method of averting the threatened railway 
strike as "a menace to free government." 

In the railway matter Mr. Wilson stepped aside from the 
straight path of truth and deliberately sought to deceive the 
American people in the effort to gain public sympathy, with 
the statement that the Adamson bill was to give the railway 
brotherhoods an eight-hour day. Mr. Wilson knows that he 
is deliberately untruthful. Mr. Hughes has been polite enough 
to name it "intellectual dishonesty." Another more plain- 



spoken American would have nominated Mr. Wilson for Presi- 
dent of the Ananias club. 

In the effort to control the labor vote for the Democratic 
party on the eve of a national election, Mr. Wilson was willing 
to undermine the foundations of constitutional government. 
The Democratic party must live though the republic perish! 

The American people intend to see that labor in this country 
shall receive fair treatment from capital. That was one of the 
big issues that called the Progressive party into existence. But 
we do not intend that our form of government shall be wrecked 
on the shoals of Wilsonian expediency! We are no more willing 
that any class of laborers should force a measure through 
Congress, than that the capitalists should go to Mr. Wilson and 
say: "Give us increased freight rates or we will discontinue 
service on every train that traverses this continent." If legis- 
lation can be accomplished that way, then popular government 
in the new world must go down in a dark night of despair. 

Mr. Wilson is a Democrat first, and after that, maybe, some- 
where away down in the scale, he is some sort of an American — 
the sort of an American who writes essays over the dead bodies 
of Americans beneath the waters of the high seas — the sort of 
an American who indites elegant epistles some times to Villa, 
some times to Carranza, when American women are outraged 
and our country's standard is trampled under foot by the bandits 
of Mexico — the sort of an American who sharpens his pencil 
for meaningless phraseology when the British King aims a blow 
at American commerce. 

Henry Watterson, sage of southern Democratic journalism, 
has said that Mr. Wilson has no heart, that if he had one, it 
would be "like an illegitimate garment, always in his way." 

Geo. W. Harvey, discoverer of Professor Wilson and who 
introduced the Professor to American politics, spoke later, in 
regretful tones, of his discovery, and confessed that Mr. Wilson's 
veracity could not be depended upon. 

Are Western Progressives going to vote for a man whose 
course is "a menace to free government," a man who has no 
heart and whose word is not dependable? These are indict- 
ments against Mr. Wilson by his friends and relatives and sup- 
porters. And the awful pity is that Mr. Wilson's record in 
office abundantly justifies the indictments. 

Woodrow Wilson, the first Southern Democratic President, 
since that flag of tender memories was furled over the great 
"lost cause" of American history, is an ugly spectacle before 
the American electorate. There was a time when Southern 
Presidents would no more stoop to demagogic subterfuge than 
they would steal or murder. There was a time when the power 
of Great Britain could not awe Southern men into submission. 
But, behold, the day has dawned when a group of brotherhoods 
can "hold up" a Southern President and make him scurry over 

C 



to Congress like a scared rabbit, and then seek to deceive about 
the purposes of the measure his action, forced through the na- 
tional law-making body. There was a day when Southern 
statesmen were afraid of nothing in the world but to fail in 
truth and duty. There was a day when Southern patriots wrote 
across the white flags of their statehood: "Not for ourselves 
but for others." 

There is an abysmal distance between Woodrow Wilson and 
the greater day in Southern history. He had much to inspire 
him, but he failed! Has Woodrow Wilson forgotten the proud 
beginnings of Southern history? How has he shamed our ideals 
and lowered our standards and darkened our hopes! 

Mr. Wilson's deeds never square with his lofty words. 

The platform on which he was elected spoke as follows: 

"We denounce the profligate waste of money wrung from the 
people by excessive taxation through the lavish appropriation 
of recent Republican Congresses, which have kept taxes high and 
reduced the purchasing power of the people's toil. We demand 
a return to that simplicity and economy which befits a Demo- 
cratic government and a reduction in the number of useless 
offices, the salaries of which drain the substance of the people." 

High sounding words! The Congress which has just ad- 
journed created numerous new and useless offices and appro- 
priated about $2,000,000,000 of the people's money. Never 
before in our history has an administration been so profligate 
in expenditures. Just how many millions of deficit four years 
of Democratic economy have produced will be learned under 
another administration. 



WILSON TREATED PROGRESSIVES WITH 
CONTEMPT. AS NATIONAL ELECTION 
APPROACHES HE'S WRITING ESSAYS 
ABOUT WHAT A GOOD PROGRESS- 
IVE HE IS. 

Viewing the junk heap into which Mr. Wilson consigned the 
platform upon which he was elected, I am reminded of a negro 
church known to fame as Zion Hill, which once flourished on 
one of the red old hills of Georgia. The African pastor, a relic 
of the old slave days, had partially mastered elementary reading. 
On a balmy June Sunday, he painfully read his text from the 
Bible; then carefully removing his spectacles and taking a 
copious draught of water from a well-filled pitcher that stood 
on the pine board pulpit, he announced in deeply solemn tones: 
"Bredren an' sistren, you hab jes' hearn de scriptures, but I 
begs leab to differ wid our Lord an' Master on dis important 
question;" and he proceeded to preach according to his own 
views. Mr. Wilson has assumed to differ with the main planks 
of the Democratic platform on which he was elected; and it is 
a reasonable conclusion that his mental processes are somewhat 
in tune with the unlettered negro preacher of the Georgia 
mountains. 

The Democratic platform pledged protection for American 
lives wherever the sun shines or the seas roll. The silent lipe 
of America's unavenged dead beneath the waters of the high 
seas and on the fields of Mexico, mutely testify to the quality 
of Mr. Wilson's faith with that pledge. 

Mr. Wilson declared against intervention in Mexico, but he 
intervened after the most dangerous fashion in assuming to 
dictate who should or should not be President of Mexico, and 
out of that colossal blunder have issued our Mexican troubles. 
Indeed, nearly all the troubles of Mr. Wilson's administration 
have been of his own making. He had no more right to interfere 
in the internal affairs of Mexico than the Mexican government 
had the right to refuse to recognize Mr. Wilson as President of 
our republic, because he chanced to be elected by the minority 
party, due to a split in the Republican party. 

If our government had any business at Vera Cruz, our fleet 
steamed out of the harbor without attending to it. leaving help- 
less Americans to be rescued by foreign ships. No wonder the 
Mexicans despise us, and spit on our flag and murder our men 
and outrage our women. They have learned that we have a 
President who doesn't care. 

When nineteen of our brave lads were brought back from 
Vera Cruz to be buried, Mr. Wilson delivered an oration over 
the dead bodies, saying they had gone down to Mexico to serve 
humanity. High sounding words! But again Mr. Wilson stepped 



aside from the path of truth. He sent the naval forces to 
Mexico to compel Huerta to sal ite the flag, and suffered igno- 
minious failure. Nothing- whatever was accomplished! by our 
country's jaunt to Vera Cruz, and every drop of American blood 
spilled and of unoffending Mexican blood is on the shoulders 
of Woodrow Wilson. 

When Huerta came to New York after being driven out of 
Mexico by Mr. Wilson, I sought an interview with him at the 
Ansonia Hotel. My first question was : "General, did you 
salute Old Glory when you stepped ashore." 

He laughed pleasantly and then said: "Tell the American 
people, Senora, that I salute their country's flag with all my 
homage. It stands for strength and justice." 

I asked the exiled President of Mexico how he stood on 
female suffrage. And he answered promptly: "I was pre- 
paring to appoint women to administrative positions in Mexico 
which would fit them to exercise the power of the ballot. But 
here in the United States your wonderful educational institu- 
tions have already qualified American women for the ballot." 

I saw Huerta many years ago in the republic of Mexico, 
in the vigor of robust manhood when he commanded the armies 
of Diaz. But it was a broken and worn old man who talked 
with me in New York, some times with a mist before his eyes 
and a sob in his voice, of Mexico's internal troubles. A little 
later, Mexico's exiled President lay dead on our western plains, 
hastened to his grave by Mr. Wilson. 

If it was our business to invade Mexico in pursuit of Villa, 
we have not attended to it. Villa is still among the uncaught. 
Meanwhile we have mobilized our national guards on the Texas 
borders, threatening to stretch to the Pacific ocean. 

After ridding Mexico of Huerta, for a time, Mr. Wilson 
boosted Villa for President. Growing tired of Villa, his verdant 
fancy lightly turned to Carranza. The next we know he may 
be flirting with Zapata. While these lines are running into type, 
the guns shipped into Mexico by American manufacturers, with 
Mr. Wilsons knowledge and acquiescence, are being turned on 
American soldiers. 

Mr. Wilson has never had any real Mexican policy and he 
has called upon the South American republics to tell him what 
to do. 

No wonder the Mexicans despise us, insult our flag and raid 
our towns. They know the "alue of Mr. Wilson's "strict ac- 
countability threats " 

The whole world knows what Mr. Wilson did to the Panama 
Canal tolls plank of his platform. But there is one plank of 
the Democratic platform which the American people are going 
to see that Mr. Wilson preserves — the one-term plank. 

For more than a year after the first guns of the European 
war Mr. Wilson did not lift his hand to make this nation ready 
to defend itself, and it was only when a robust American patriot 
went up and down the country, arousing the national conscience. 

9 



that Mr.. Wilson announced that America should have incom- 
parably the greatest navy of the earth. A few weeks later he 
weakened on the greatest navy program, and announced for 
adequate military preparedness. His Secretary of War set to 
work on this program but scarcely had he fully outlined it 
before Mr. Wilson went back on the program in such manner as 
to force out of his cabinet his strongest cabinet officer, Secre- 
tary of War Garrison. 

With every principle of liberty and justice which free peo- 
ples hold sacred; the issue in the world war, Mr. Wilson rushed 
to the front with a beautiful essay in which he declared that 
the American people should "be neutral even in thought." Right 
and wrong were battling on the ensanguined fields of the Old 
World, but the people of the great, free republic of the New 
World, must not even think right. But Mr. Wilson is changing 
his views these days about every twenty-four hours, veering 
to every quarter of the compass in the effort to gain votes for 
another term. The other day at "Shadow' Lawn" he renounced 
his "neutrality in thought" doctrine and solemnly proclaimed 
that "no nation can any longer remain neutral as against any 
wilful disturbance of the peace of the world." 

Nobody knows what Mr. Wilson believes in, because his 
words and his deeds are always widely at variance. 

Mr. Wilson says he's for conservation. But he signed away 
the imperial acres of Hetch Hetchy valley to a San Francisco 
corporation bent on glittering development schemes under the 
guise of supplying water to the city of San Francisco. He 
signed away one of the world's great wonders and then wrote 
an apologetic essay about it. 

Mr. Wilson says he's for conservation, but he did not lift his 
voice against the iniquitous Shields bilk designed to deliver to 
the waterpower trust that last of our country's public treasu- 
ries, the waterpower of the entire nation. If Wilson's for con- 
servation, God save the republic when the anti-conservationists 
get a heavy hand on the land! 

Mr. Wilson announces in a loud voice that he believes in 
efficient administration of the government's affairs. But in all 
American history our government has never been so extrava- 
gantly and inefficiently managed as under Wilson's administra- 
tion. If he's for efficiency, God help the country when the inef- 
ficient crowd get control! 

Mr. Wilson's pet expression is his belief in "pitiless pub- 
licity," but he has been the first American President to convert 
the executive office into a "star chamber." 

In eloquent words Mr. Wilson has acclaimed himself Presi- 
dent of the whole American people. But this nation has never 
had a more sectional President. He has remarked the fast 
fading line between the north and the south. He has treated 
the Progressives with scorn and contempt. And now that he 
needs our votes, he is writing a few more essays setting forth 
what a good Progressive he is. 

10 



ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

WOULD HAVE AVERTED THE 

EUROPEAN WAR. 

Since Appomattox, the wonderful land between the Potomac 
and the Rio Grande, has been under the shackles of the Demo- 
cratic party, but the principles for which Jefferson and his 
colleagues battled, have been buried by Woodrow Wilson. We 
who followed Colonel Roosevelt into the Progressive party felt 
that the road had at last been opened for the political emanci- 
pation of the South. No intelligent person of intellectual hon- 
esty questions that it is a bad situation for any section to have 
only one political party. Where there are two parties measur- 
ing strength there is always cleaner government — more respon- 
siveness to the will of the people. 

. At the breaking out of the European war when the South 
staggered in the shadow of bankruptcy, Mr. Wilson did not lift 
his hand to help Southern farmers, because the South is solidly 
democratic. But when the South's cotton crop- had passed into 
the hands of Wall street gamblers he found the way to aid them. 
Instincts deeper seated than life — the angel with flaming 
sword which the South has planted at the pure sources of her 
racial streams — Mr. Wilson has scornfully flouted, because tin 
South is democratic anyway. The first Southern President in 
American history to elevate a negro to the federal bench in 
the District of Columbia, to pass upon the rights of the race 
which, through the long centuries of upward struggle since 
Hengist and Horsa landed on the shores of England, has proven 
its fitness to rule the republic of the western hemisphere with 
authority undivided. 

In explanation. Mr. Wilson confided to the American people 
that he bought the negro support in 1912, and was discharging 
campaign debts ! Paying campaign debts with freedom's last 
and holiest tribunal ! God witnesses that no President in west- 
ern world history has ever before made such a shameful admis- 
sion ! 

Mr. Wilson sent word to the St. Louis convention to incor- 
porate suffrage in the Democratic platform. In fact, Mr. Wilson 
wrote the suffrage plank, which is susceptible of so many dif- 
ferent interpretations that nobody knows what it really means. 
Mr. Wilson said the South was opposed to suffrage, but as the 
South was Democratic anyway, that made no difference; the 
Democracy had to try to win the free states of the West. 

Is the progressive West going to vote for a man who has 
proven himself a sorry time-server on one of the great issues 
of the century ? 

In the first months of Mr. Wilson's administration when 



his near free trade tariff had caused numerous industries to be 
closed and thrown thousands out of employment, a committee 
representing the army of unemployed called at the White House. 
Mr. Wilson comforted them with the assurance that the situa- 
tion was purely psychological. The man with an empty dinner 
pail doesn't have time to inquire into psychology. 

Now that Mr. Wilson needs the votes of the business in- 
terests of the country, he announces that he no longer believes 
in free trade and that the Sherman anti-trust act has about 
served its usefulness. 

He went gayly down to Atlantic City to stand before the 
national suffrage convention and proclaim his belief in equal 
suffrage. But he wasn't a suffragist until he needed the votes 
of the women of the free states of the West. For four years 
all factions of suffrage workers in America have labored in vain 
with Mr. Wilson. Even now, he limits his support to state 
legislation. If left to state legislation, a million years hence 
will find Southern women still shackled. . and Woodrow Wilson 
knows it. He merely uses language to beguile in his stand on 
suffrage as he has on every other big question that has come 
to him for handling. 

I appeal to the women of the West to help their Southern 
sisters to political freedom by voting for the man who favors 
an amendment to the federal constitution, the only route by 
which Southern women hope to reach political equality, and no 
one knows that better than Woodrow Wilson. 

Mr. Wilson said he believed in rural credit to which his 
platform pledged him. But in the last hours of his adminis- 
tration he handed out a gold brick to the farmers and it will 
be about two years before they learn how they have been tricked 
and betrayed, as it will require about that length of time to get 
the Wilson rural credits to operating. Meanwhile, Wilson's pale 
effigy of rural credits serves the Democratic campaign. 

When one hurls unanswerable facts at a Wilson supporter 
as to the failure of Wilson's administration, he may be counted 
upon to back into a corner, and say the only thing left to say: 
"Well, Wilson's kept us out of war, and if Roosevelt had been 
in the White House we would have been in war long ago." 
What right had Woodrow Wilson to plunge this nation into 
war? The power to "fear God and take one's own part" does 
not lead to war. It is the surest guarantee of peace. We want 
adequate preparedness to enable us to maintain peace on this 
continent; but peace with honor. 

Mr. Wilson has so stultified American ideals, honor and 
virility that a hundred years will not be long enough to undo the 
evil he has wrought. He has constantly held before this age, 
already steeped in commercialism, the advantages of ease and 
profit, as against the courage which leads to the performance 
of duty at whatever sacrifice or cost. 

With respect to Mexico and the invasion of Belgium, his 

12 



position has been exactly that of a robust man who would sit 
supinely on his front porch and witness the pitiless maltreat- 
ing of a helpless child on his neighbor's lawn, fearing to raise 
his voice on the side of right, lest he jeopardize his own ease 
and comfort. 

If Theodore Roosevelt had been in the White House, there 
would have been no European war. At the time of the assas- 
sination of the heir to the Austrian throne, and in the tense 
days immediately following, when the gathering clouds of war 
darkened the horizon of the civilized world, a strong man like 
Roosevelt would have taken steps to avert the world war. When 
Roosevelt was President every act of his was on the side of 
peace. He settled the war between Russia and Japan and for 
that great service to humanity was awarded the Noble Peace 
prize. Roosevelt assembled the American fleet and sent it 
around the world to show to the nations of the earth that we 
were able to maintain peace on this continent and to stand for 
peace on this globe, whenever and wherever the world's peace 
should be threatened. Under Roosevelt's administration we had 
the second greatest navy in the world. But during the term of 
the essayist, our navy has so deteriorated, that Wilson's Sec- 
retary of the Navy is ashamed and afraid for its real condition 
to be made known to the American people. 

This republic is not going to say at the ballot box on the 
7th of November that we endorse the spineless course by which 
Mr. Wilson has shorn us of our self respect and lost us the 
respect of every nation of the earth. This republic is not going 
to announce to the world that we have forgotten our dead be- 
neath the waters that wash foreign shores. We are not going 
to say that we are not our sister's keeper — that sister prostrate 
under the bandit's heels on the far fields of Mexico. 

Charles Evans Hughes is honest. He is courageous. He has 
been tried and found true. He stands for an Americanism that 
must spring into vaster and more virile life from the depths 
of the degradation into which Mr. Wilson has trailed the nation's 
standard. 

The pure jurist! . The dauntless champion of the people 
against the encroachments of the corporations! Tested as chief 
executive of the northern empire state! He answers the call of 
a mighty nation in a world crisis! 

The unawed American electorate, gathering from busy marts, 
and from millions of happy homes on our broad commons, will 
march to countless voting places on the 7th of November to 
execute the freeman's will which will crown Charles Evans 
•Hughes President of the whole American people. 

My last word to you men and women of the West: Help 
us make his election unanimous. In that way it is given us 
properly to avenge the nation's outraged honor. 

And we will properly avenge it if the mighty West has not 
lost the vision which patriot's hearts hold on the commons c' 

13 



Lexington and on the heights of Gettysburg— the vision of a 
forward-looking, unawed republic, enshrining justice, liberty 
and equality, as dawn stars of that flag which, please God, shall 
still keep the hopes of men undimmed! 



J 



14 



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